


In a Field of Paper Flowers

by SleepingOnVenus



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Break Up, Canon Trans Character, Coming of Age, Courage, Flowers, Gen, Pacifism, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 09:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14667798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingOnVenus/pseuds/SleepingOnVenus





	In a Field of Paper Flowers

_I was the only real thing in a field of paper flowers;_  
_Even a perfect daisy could not conceal its falsehood._  
_And since just yesterday,_  
_**The garden is burning.**_

 

It was around sunset, and he found himself thinking about what had happened in his life.

It was around sunset, and he was sitting alone on his porch, feeling smaller than he was.

It was around sunset, and he felt the chill in the air.

It was around sunset, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Daisy.

He couldn't get rid of her things. He didn’t know why he just couldn’t. Even after he threw her out of his house just a month back. He couldn’t even feel relief, he was too low. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he supposed he felt ill, hollowed out somehow. As if something had eaten up the marrow in his bones. If something lay waste to his body, taking his internal organs and his muscles with it. 

He’d never made it back to Junon. Despite all the promises he made over the phone, despite how he swore to Daisy that after he threw her out, he was going to leave. He had never made it out, despite the notice he’d left at the flower shop.

Nothing grew here, anyway. He didn’t know why he tried.

He burnt through more than half a pack of cigarettes he had only bought an hour before. He didn’t know why he chose to be lonely outside, when at least if he was indoors, he was safe from the chill he wasn’t appropriately dressed for. Sure, Edge didn’t get winter, but he was not immune to the chill of spring. 

Let alone when he was dressed in a loose-fitting muscle shirt.

But that was okay--if he smoked enough, he could pretend he was warm.

Besides, Edge didn’t have mosquitoes. At least not yet. Everyone said in a few years, their weather would be normal as opposed to weather just not happening in Midgar. But that hadn’t happened yet, and he wasn’t in the mood to put a sweater on. He could just smoke enough until he could pretend. Until his lungs burned.

 

 _But I awoke, in what place?_  
_Surely this isn’t my own._  
_Certainly, there is more than this._  
_Certainly, this isolation is a test,_  
_And the world has not **forsaken** me._

 

He supposed it didn’t matter, but he realised just then that he had never talked to himself before. Even in the wake of his anxiety, in a city that wasn’t his. Even after his own town burned, and so many were lost. After his home was lost, after all he had ever known was lost.

_And it **did** burn. ___

____

How he begged his grandfather to stop, to just listen, to save others. But Jon just drove. He drove until they were far from Nibelheim. Drove even after they were lost. Drove until they made it to Corel. Drove until they could find a temporary place to stay before they flew off to Junon. The pace was consistent, hardly a break taken unless it was necessary.

It haunted him, but he knew why his grandfather drove. Why they had never stopped.

_Because they would have died._

He could only think of Junon, could only think of his grandfather, because the house he and Daisy had bought together didn’t feel like a home. Neither did Junon, but at the very least, his grandfather was there. Jon had suffered a stroke while Shane lived with Daisy, but he had made a full recovery. Everything was fine. He still called. But that house had never felt like a home. He was perfectly able to pull the wool over his eyes, pretend it did, pretend what he and Daisy had was perfect. That it was always fulfilling, that she was faithful. He lied only to himself, and it became a temporary haven he took refuge in.

Until, of course, all of the suppressings had taken a toll. After it had all come crashing down.

**He was Atlas, and his shoulders were hurting. He was Atlas, and his shoulders were bruising. He was Atlas, and his shoulders were breaking. He was Atlas, and his bones were breaking out of his skin, all from the weight of the world.**

And she was vulnerable, for one moment she seemed human. After years of it, Shane had finally had enough and had told her exactly how this harmed him. How much of a terrible person she’d become. How he wasn’t naive, but complacent enough to let it happen all over again because he was _comfortable_ in their misery.

How he _couldn’t wait_ until he saw her face, and his brain perceived a stranger.

_That was a month ago, now._

A lot more was always on his mind than what he let people see. A lot more that he just chose not to believe he was thinking about, even as he was thinking it. Especially when he remembered the sounds of his father screaming, as Jon drove. As the houses burnt. As the _people_ burnt.

_And they **did** burn._

 

 _ **Spare me.**_ _If the world had forsaken me,_  
_It would have told me already._  
_It’s my own bones that I am breaking._  
_It’s my own choice to remain._  
_But O Lord, O merciful goddess,_  
_Or anyone that’s listening,_  
_Spare me my flesh  
_ _Of this pain._

_____ _

 

He was shaking now, but he couldn’t remember when he started shaking. He wasn’t too cold, but he was well aware of what was happening.

 _He was going to cry._  


He was going to cry, and there wasn’t any way to stop it. He remembered his grandfather telling him there was no shame in tears unless they were false. But these were not false, Shane had always walked this world honestly. He walked into emotion honestly. Unless, of course, he was with Daisy. But this time, he was walking in earnest, and nothing could stop him. No Daisy to impede him from feeling. No people around, and it was his own house. No worry to stop him. No prayer.

_Shane only ever **half-prayed,** he was never a religious man; just a **damaged** one._

__

****

And Daisy knew all about that. She was the one that called him “damaged goods”, in the first place.

He had never talked to himself before, but this had ended as a hot tear rolled down his cheek. _“Yeah, **fuck you,** Daisy.”_ His throat burned, and he was almost startled by his own voice. His tone. How _miserable_ he seemed. Finishing up a long-neglected cigarette, he left the pack on the step, and began to walk.

It would have been comfortable to just sit and cry, but he had to move. Wherever he could. Wherever was away.

He could have taken the car, but it wouldn’t burn off the same amount of misery. He supposed _he ate it_ every day, supposed that this was like burning off a load of calories. If he treated it that way, he could pretend he had some small coal of courage. That it could burn. That it could burn hotter than the sun if he let it.

He was a human being. _He couldn’t eat his misery right now._ It hurt when he swallowed, so why bother? He told his legs to walk, but it developed into a run. He was running, and he almost felt accomplished by doing something other than sitting in his house and _**eating** his misery._ He was running, and he had no destination; he just had to run.

Soon, he ran as fast as a forest on fire.

Soon, he ran just as fast as he had _lost_ everything.

He knew he wasn’t okay, but the misery was getting burnt off.

_And it **did** burn._

 

 __ **Please,**  
_Please, don’t break my paper heart._  
_Or at least, do not break it_  
_Until I can make another._  
_I am not good at folding paper,_  
_Origami isn’t organic,_  
_But_ **please.**  
_Don’t break my paper heart,  
_**Until I can make another.**_ _

______ _ _

 

_____ _ ____

**The house-- _his house_** \--now far behind him. His throat, burning but recovering. Tears all shed as he ran. He was alone before, he was alone now, but he didn’t feel it as bad as he had felt it at his house. He couldn’t curl up with it here. Not while he was running. He had to pause for air and cursed himself at that moment for smoking, but he still didn’t allow himself to curl up with it. It wouldn’t grip his heart and tear into it; not if he didn’t allow it to. 

_____ _

He was a human being, _and he couldn’t eat his misery._

It didn’t have enough _**nutritional value,**_ ** **anyway.****

********

No destination. No people. No Daisy. Nothing to impede him. This was his small coal of courage.

_This was how he swallowed it._

He was sweating now, the chill sticking to him now that he was wet, but there was much to do after his break. He wasn’t done running. Just regrouping. He made his way into a convenience store and had bought a bottle of water with what gil he had in his wallet, spent some time just sitting outside and replenishing what moisture he’d lost before he went back in and bought a second. He was stalling, but not for too long. For when he recovered, he had started to run again. Until the convenience store was behind him, barely within view if he looked back on his distance. Until he had made it to the wasteland that had been left after Meteor. 

He recalled that he wasn’t there when Midgar was destroyed, nor when the Lifestream burst out to heal its wounds, as it fought hard against the intruder in the skies above. He was in Rocket Town, instead. He chose to obey when everyone had fled to the cellar of the inn he was staying in.

In the morning, Rocket Town was fine, but Midgar was in the news.

He knew the wasteland wasn’t safe, but it was just another thing he pushed away. He had to run. He still hadn’t burned it all off. He could not stop now, not after how much he had already run. It brought back memories of being in Junon’s military academy--really his **_only_** choice at the time, as they could not afford private schooling--and how he wasn’t the fastest runner, but he had excellent stamina. It wasn’t lost in the years since, though it waned with his smoking.

_This was his second wind._

Through the wasteland, he ran. No monsters presented themselves yet, but he knew this fragile peace was just that, fragile. He should have come armed, but he was a pacifist. He owned no weapons of war, no materia. Hell, he didn’t even have pepper spray in the case of an assailant. He supposed he knew Aikido, but that wouldn’t prevent a beast from attacking.

But for now, nothing impeded him.

Nothing, until he found a structure, poking out from behind rubble. Otherwise untouched. It was a building, not so much anything owned by Shinra, but something man-made. Usually, buildings such as these didn’t interest him. He was never interested in abandoned buildings unless they’d been abandoned for decades, and nature was reclaiming them. When the plants had found their way to grow over the unnatural structure, despite being so delicate.

He enjoyed the stubbornness of flowers. _They would always find their way._

The structure was calling to him. How did something fall just in front, but not onto the building? Not through? There were holes in the roof, how had the roof not collapsed entirely? How had it not imploded, even as the angry soil quaked, as the Lifestream had burst out with such vitriol? Regardless, he approached the building to find what it really was. At least to sate his curiosity. He felt drawn to this structure, with little reason as to why. He always needed to know **why.**

With Daisy, it was never why.

With Daisy, it was always _how._

_How are you?_

__

_How are you this lovely?_

__

_How do you love me so much?_

__

_How are you this beautiful?_

__

_How could we leave?_

____

_How far must we go?_

_____ _

_How could we buy a house?_

______ _ _

How could I be mistaken? How could you do this to me? Whichever how worked, regardless of the connotation. He would fight the more negative hows, but they won eventually. He won, eventually. He could be himself. Not “damaged goods”, not “something that can’t be understood”. She wasn’t the only good thing in his life. He believed in good people, he believed everyone had the strength to make good choices. 

_______ _ _ _

 

_______ _ _ _

_If my tears work,_  
_Will it keep my garden from burning?_  
_If my tears work,_  
_Will it keep my flowers watered?_  
_Or will it drown  
_ _Just as I have drowned myself?_

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

He had seen buildings such as this. No two the same, but their meaning always the same. He was sure the religious connotation was lost long ago, as it had never been repaired. The pews were worn, and he wondered for a moment if someone was living here. Of course, it wouldn’t be a suitable resting place, but it would do if someone was homeless. It would do for a runaway. It would do in a pinch if someone had no other choice.

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

It was a church, and _he had only ever half-prayed in his life._

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**He always had that choice.**_ His grandfather always allowed him choice.

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

But there was something off about it here. It was abandoned, of course, parts of the floor rotted, but most kept relatively dry enough that the rot didn’t spread too far. It was quiet, peaceful, but he supposed any abandoned building would be quiet. Although, he knew that most of them would bring him--and _anyone,_ really--some relative unease. He wasn’t trespassing, as no one was a trespasser in a church; even an abandoned one.

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

No, what was peculiar was farther into the church. Where the podium would be, where the organ would be. All of the furniture aside from the pews were missing, and instead, there were _flowers._

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

And they bloomed so **fearlessly.** Despite flowers being delicate creatures on their own, they exuded a certain kind of strength. A certain kind of hope. 

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

_A coal stuck inside him, he had the courage to **swallow.**_

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

He was delicate, just the same as them. He was stubborn, just the same as them. He lay his tired body in the middle of those flowers, eyes closed as he imagined his field. As he imagined his home. Wind sailing so gently over him, gently over these flowers, gently over this life. 

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

_If they could bloom, even in this wreckage, why couldn’t he?_

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _

_I am the only real thing,_  
_In a field of paper flowers._  
_But I am_ **so fearless.  
** _**So stubborn.**_  
_I am delicate, but unashamed._  
_And sometimes, you must weed a garden._  
_Sometimes,_  
_**You must find your solace alone.**_

****

****

__________ _ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
